I treated her with oral antifungals - though Nilstat is good for sour crop yeast, I wasn't sure if it would work if administered from the top end. I did that for a week, but her bottom continued to weep and discharge.
I did regular baths, but it was clear there was something on the inside that was the problem. Bathing just cleaned up her feathers but her bottom continued to weep.
I then decided to try some antibiotics. Perhaps she had a salpingitis/reproductive tract infection. Chlamydia can infect chickens and tetracyclines can work on them. So a week of oral tetracycline derivatives, and I thought she seemed more perky but her bottom was no better. I did worry, however, that giving broad spectrum antibiotics would make her yeast infection flare up more.
I even did a per rectum (or is it per cloaca?) examination to see if I could feel a mass or a foreign body that was causing it. I couldn't feel anything inside.
Over the last few days, she was looking more and more withdrawn. Her head was tucked in her wing and her eyes were closed. She would eat but not as voraciously as she had at first. I told the kids (who were on holidays with their grandparents) that Lana was going to die soon.
Today, she was dead. Poor Lana.
She was a tame chicken, though a bit aggressive to the others. She would bully Mary but cower from Snowy. The kids liked her a lot and she was happy to have cuddles.
In other chicken news, Cacciatore has stopped laying because she is now moulting. She looks very bedraggled indeed! None of the other chickens have laid since March, so I am hoping that come spring we will have eggs again.
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